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Aging study: Failure to spot lies, sarcasm linked to dementia
CBS ^ | 18 Apr 2011 | David Freeman

Posted on 04/18/2011 10:39:20 PM PDT by smokingfrog

There's still no foolproof way to predict who will develop dementia, but brain scientists say they have identified a new clue:

Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm.

A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech.

"These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier."

It might also help them hold on to their money, researchers say, as the blind faith resulting from dementia can make older people easy marks for online scams and dishonest telemarketers.

For the study, 175 older volunteers - more than half of whom had Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), or some other neurodegenerative disease - watched videos of two people talking. At some points in the videos, one of the people would tell a lie or use sarcasm.

Healthy volunteers had little trouble spotting yerbal and non-verbal cues that indicated insincerity. Not so the volunteers with neurodegenerative disease.

And clueless may not be the only early sign of dementia, researchers say. Adopting a new political affiliation or religion late in life - changes sometimes attributed to a midlife crisis - may actually be the result of brain deterioration that might lead to dementia.

What's the study's take-away message? Older people should simply assume that everyone they talk to is lying.

Just kidding.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aging; brain; dementia; elderly; heath; psychology
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Another potential voting pool for democrats.
1 posted on 04/18/2011 10:39:24 PM PDT by smokingfrog
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To: smokingfrog

So all liberals will have dimentia?


2 posted on 04/18/2011 10:48:01 PM PDT by Porterville (Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.)
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To: smokingfrog
Adopting a new political affiliation or religion late in life - changes sometimes attributed to a midlife crisis - may actually be the result of brain deterioration that might lead to dementia.

Oh please! It's more likely they are waking up. I think they are afraid of some 'rats leave the pack in '12.
3 posted on 04/18/2011 10:58:50 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: smokingfrog

This explains the 40% approval rating for the Liar in Chief.


4 posted on 04/18/2011 10:59:38 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: smokingfrog


5 posted on 04/18/2011 11:03:50 PM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet - Visualize)
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To: smokingfrog

Do you think they’re kidding?


6 posted on 04/18/2011 11:07:37 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Shemp was the Fourth Stooge of the Apocalypse.)
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To: smokingfrog
Older people should simply assume that everyone they talk to is lying.

Yeah. It gets harder when you can't find your glasses and can't tell if their lips are moving.

7 posted on 04/18/2011 11:07:58 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Jeff Chandler
It sounds plausible to me. But I know there are people without dementia that sarcasm flies right past them. Hence, the often needed use of the sarcasm tag.
8 posted on 04/18/2011 11:12:56 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open ( <o> ---)
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To: smokingfrog
Neurodegenerative process.

With the occasional alien hand syndrome things and cluster migraines that only subside when my entire body feels sunburned and my feet go numb... I be rocking and rolling large. Been neurodegenerative for forty years now.

These things are not identifiable, categorized, predicted, prevented or treated. They are realities of human form that simply must be accepted.

There are forms of epilepsy that momentarily present, vanish, and defy any detection method.

I know this to be a fact.. After a dozen cats, dozen mri's, few radial skull x rays... and some rather unpleasant things being stuck down my throat.

9 posted on 04/18/2011 11:13:31 PM PDT by mmercier (my face is numb)
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To: smokingfrog

You just failed my dementia test.


10 posted on 04/18/2011 11:18:42 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Shemp was the Fourth Stooge of the Apocalypse.)
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To: smokingfrog

Bttt.


11 posted on 04/18/2011 11:26:22 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: Jeff Chandler

Ruh roh!


12 posted on 04/18/2011 11:26:53 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open ( <o> ---)
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To: Jeff Chandler

The public exhibition of dementia is a skill not easily acquired.


13 posted on 04/18/2011 11:31:52 PM PDT by mmercier
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To: Jeff Chandler

The public exhibition of dementia is a skill not easily acquired.


14 posted on 04/18/2011 11:31:52 PM PDT by mmercier
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To: smokingfrog

15 posted on 04/18/2011 11:33:16 PM PDT by Lazlo in PA (Now living in a newly minted Red State.)
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To: mmercier

It is?


16 posted on 04/18/2011 11:33:22 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Shemp was the Fourth Stooge of the Apocalypse.)
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Sarcasm - the last refuge of an empty mind.


17 posted on 04/18/2011 11:36:23 PM PDT by Milhous
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To: Jeff Chandler
?si tI

.dnatsrednu ton od I

18 posted on 04/18/2011 11:42:17 PM PDT by mmercier
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To: Milhous
Sarcasm is necessary to expose hypocrisy.

Those who do not get it are not worth bothering with in any case, but when the get irate.. It helps

19 posted on 04/18/2011 11:46:27 PM PDT by mmercier
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To: smokingfrog
Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm.

This bodes ill for my wife. I'm not worried though, because she was always like that.

20 posted on 04/18/2011 11:51:47 PM PDT by dr_lew
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